Ottawa Inuit denounce police racism, honour Annie Pootoogook

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking Oct. 4 at the Families of Sisters in Spirit vigil on Parliament Hill, held to demand justice for the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Trudeau said Canada has failed to protect missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and in upholding the spirit and intent of the original relationships between Indigenous peoples and newcomers. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

Sytukie Joamie, now working as an Inuit knowledge keeper in Ottawa, speaks Oct. 4 at the Families of Sisters in Spirit vigil on Parliament Hill, held to demand justice for the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

OTTAWA—In a moving display of solidarity on Parliament Hill Oct. 4, Inuit in Ottawa honoured the memory of the late Annie Pootoogook and denounced the racism they say is hampering the Ottawa Police Service investigation into her death.

“A police officer made racist statements. Mr. Prime Minister should be doing something about that… you have to stand with us, Mr. Prime Minister,” Sytukie Joamie, who works as an Inuit knowledge keeper in Ottawa, said in a speech before hundreds of people gathered at Parliament Hill Oct. 4 for a vigil held to demand justice for the families of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

Annie Potoogook, 46, a revered Inuit artist, was found dead in the Rideau River Sept. 19 and the Ottawa Police Service confirmed her identity Sept. 23.

Online comments posted around Sept. 24 on the Ottawa Citizen website from the Facebook account of Chris Hrnchiar, an OPS sergeant, included remarks like this: “she got drunk and fell in the river and drowned who knows….. typically many Aboriginals have short lifespans.”

The Hrnchiar comments also said “much of the Aboriginal population” is satisfied with being drug and alcohol abusers and do not have the “will to change.”

Inuit leaders are now condemning these remarks as an example of police racism that has led to an inadequate investigation into Pootoogook’s death.

“When she was found in the river, the systematic racism started already, the systematic injustice started already,” Joamie said in his speech.

“If my partner, from the west end, a Qallunaaq white woman, was found in that river, there would have been a thorough investigation. But it never happened for Annie,” he said.

Joamie said the Inuit community in Ottawa believed immediately that Pootoogook’s death was suspicious because she had told people that she had run away because “she wanted to stay alive.”

“We are a coastal people and if somebody dies in the water, we become suspicious right away if that person was found alone,” Joamie said. “The Inuit community, when we heard about Annie, we knew right away that it was suspicious because nobody walks into the water.”

And Joamie called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who stood just behind him, to do something about racism within police forces.

“We all know what that racist police officer said. Not only did he say it, he wrote it for everybody to see,” he said.

He said he applauds honest, hard-working policeman who go out to work every day, not knowing if they will return home unharmed. But he said racists within the Ottawa police are likely responsible for a “shameful” response to Pootoogook’s death because they had automatically written it off as non-suspicious.

“It is the racists of that department who hindered the investigation right from the beginning and said those racist remarks. That is really sad in 2016.”

The Ottawa police now say there are suspicious elements in Pootoogook’s death and continue to investigate.

Scores of Inuit who live in Ottawa attend the event and gathered on the steps of Parliament Hill to honour Pootoogook in a show of solidarity.

Kilatja Simeonie, Pootoogook’s cousin, displayed a large photograph of her late relative throughout the vigil.

“I never expected anything like this, for an Inuk to be remembered here in Ottawa, but I’m glad,” she said.

“Thank God there is so many people to do a vigil for Aboriginal and Inuit people,” she said.

Trudeau, who spoke at the vigil, said he recognizes that the politicians who have worked in the Parliamentary buildings behind him “have failed to uphold the values and principles which they were supposed to defend.”

“We failed specifically in the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and all others, generally in upholding the spirit and intent of the original relationships, the original trusts that were built between Indigenous peoples and those who arrived in this land,” Trudeau said.

Ottawa Inuit will at some point in the near future hold a memorial for Annie Pootoogook that will coincide with her funeral in Cape Dorset.

Ottawa police chief Charles Bourdeleau has opened a chief’s complaint against the OPS member who posted the racist remarks, but has been criticized for a weak response to the controversy, as has Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.

“Chief Bordeleau’s attempt to gloss over the real-life implications for Indigenous peoples of having an outwardly racist police officer serving the city of Ottawa comes at a time when Canada has committed itself to a path of reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians. This is unacceptable,” Natan Obed, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami said in an op-ed published Sept. 30 in the Ottawa Citizen.

Jason Leblanc of Tungasuvvingat Inuit said in a Facebook post that TI will meet with Ottawa police officials next week to discuss how police provide services to Inuit.